“Guys are super simple. They usually have these 3 basic needs to be happy: Money, women and cars or PCs,” Monkey explained to me while we were having breakfast earlier today before I headed for work. “A good woman that they can go home to, enough money to support their cars/gaming habits & their relationship, and their drug. It’s usually either gaming things or automotives.”

My man never strays far from his drug.

Like a lot of guys, he has this fierce passion for his car, a sedan Honda Civic EF with Japanese half-cut at the front. While we do eat outside a lot at the beginning of the relationship, fancy sushi places and nice café spots, expensive shopping malls window-shopping sessions and all the more, his income is now mostly channeled towards his other wife. Yes, that car.

He loves it so much that he couldn’t really bear having it out of his sight when we eat at food courts. “I feel more secure when I can see my car,” he would explain to me. Well, to each their own poison.

Now you might be wondering why I said he has a fierce passion for this Honda Civic. Actually, I might add that ‘fierce passion’ is an understatement, because in his own words this morning he had told me, “I’m sorry to say this but if my car turns into a human I would definitely fuck her,”

Now, there’s a few questions in my mind:

I put those girl feely-feely things aside and asked, “Well, okay. This is definitely going in my blog. But first, tell me more about just how much you love that car.”

He then told me about how he once had a candlelit dinner-like thing with his car. “That was before I met you,” he seemed to feel compelled to add. Just him, and the car with its hood open.

I have definitely just lost to a car. There has never been a candlelit dinner at any point of our relationship. I suppose that might have been for the best though. I could have burnt the whole room down if I was any more careless.

And then there was this other time when his group of friends and him were saying things like, “Damn, look at that sexy piece of ass right over there,”, “She’s the sexiest, hottest thing, ever. No arguments. Just look at her,” or even “I’m not gonna lie, I would fuck her if I could,” and some girls nearby overheard them and felt displeased, having presumed that the group of boys were talking about girls as if they are objects.

“Please, woman. We are talking about our cars right now,” he explained, and showed his phone screen, scrolling past photo after photo of cars in their gallery.

Seriously, guys. Is this normal? I mean, I love books and clothes and whatnot, but you won’t hear me saying that I would love to fuck the human apparition of those items.

But all these funny details aside, I do very clearly know that he loves that car a great deal. When we had problems in our relationship, one of his ways of releasing his pent-up stress and emotions is to drive.

Just driving up and down the mountain roads, revving hard, taking corners like a madman and going way past the practical speed limits of the curvy, elevated roads. In a narrative manner of speaking, I might say that he was expressing his emotions without saying a single word – instead, opting to show his displeasure through the engine’s revving. Roaring. Screaming.

“She comforts me and lets me know that it’s okay to push her further; She hasn’t reached her limits yet, so I should keep driving, go faster, keep pushing her to further lengths until I feel better. She would convince me that things would all be alright again, and it’s okay to let it all out. She’s there for me.” I remember him telling me once.

Sure, at the beginning I worried a great deal about this method of stress relief, but by now I myself have grown to like the thrill of fast, skilled driving. That aside, his love for his car isn’t harming anyone, and I am still claiming the throne as his Queen no. 1, so if he wants to love it that hard, by all means go ahead my man. I love you and I support you.

P/S: If by some weird black magic ways your car does turn into a human and you decide to fuck her, I’m not sure if I really want to know.

I’m not going to hide it. My man has a figure good enough that he can rock the old uncle-ish singlets just fine, effortlessly. Although he doesn’t work on cars in those singlets where he works, there are times when the Malaysian weather gets a bit too much (Who am I kidding, is it really just ‘a bit’ hot in Malaysia? Pfft) and the guys just work shirtless.

Yesssss, just let those beautiful images of guys with definted biceps and pecs working on your car flood your brain and cleanse your soul. Their bodies glistening with sweat; hands all dirtied from lubricant, engine oil and God knows what. Physical, perceptible signs of working through blood, sweat and tears.

Pure. Hot. Take-Me-Now kind of hot. Delicious.

You get the idea.

At least to me, it is, aside from the other customer that he had some time ago who we still talk about from time to time. Monkey had told me about said incident right after he was done with work, and I was – and still am – amused by the encounter that he faced.

It was one typical Malaysian hot summer day when he was working shirtless and a middle-aged-ish uncle happened to bring his daughter along to the workshop. It was the customer’s second visit; He came alone for the first one. He took note of Monkey then, who was notably young but seemed to know what he was doing with the cars. Intrigued, he approached my man and started chatting with him, asking about his age, his background & work experiences.

Then it happened.

“I have my daughter here, she’s still single. She’s a few years older than you are but hey, I think you’re a good guy,” He started introducing her. “You’re still so young, but you have already started working and have a few years of experience. You’re passionate about your job. That’s a good trait.” He mused before leaving his daughter with my man while the uncle himself went off somewhere else for the duration of the car repair. He kept his promise from the first visit when he had told monkey about his daughter, saying that he would bring her for the next visit.

Did I ask how he responded?

Of course, I did. I might not be the craziest of girlfriends, knowing that he’s loyal and trustworthy, but why not get the full story since I was already getting half the scoop, am I right?

He did tell the uncle that he has a girlfriend. He has me, okay? The relaxation-inducing, fried-food-making, super-attached girlfriend who still fangirls over him after 2 years together with him.

“You are still young, relationships won’t last. Just try to get to know my daughter first, you might like her. She’s quite a nice and pleasant person!”

Excuse you, uncle. Excuse you.

Upon being left with the girl, he simply said ‘hi’ to her and they were quiet for the remaining of the duration while he worked on the car.

I suppose that’s how some people might have met their romantic prospects on the job. Afterall, I did meet my man while he was assisting as a parkour coach and I became one of his students. But uh, sorry, uncle. He really is taken. Your daughter and you came by a bit too late.

So, I’m officially 22. On my birthday, my colleagues and I went to Zeus 13 for lunch. Had a good meal, and there was cake to be shared. I also had two other slices of cake from my other colleagues and I brought them home.

Monkey fetched me home after work, and we had a good nap and ate birthday cakes I got at work. He made it a point to wish me last for my birthday instead of being the first. Around 8p.m., he told me to pack up. He’s bringing me to his place.

That’s how I ended up staying the whole weekend at his house, celebrated his dad’s birthday as well, and found out that he sleeptalks once in a while.

Over the past 2 years together, he never really did that. Occasionally, he would kind of grunt or let out some weird unintelligible noises, but that would be about it.

Here’s the thing. I’m a light sleeper. I wake up briefly from movements on the bed or if he changes his sleeping postures. Two days ago, when we were both deep asleep, I woke up upon hearing murmurs from him.

“… … Take it.” Half asleep, I turned to him and just went, “Hmm?”

“This one’s also yours?” he continued in his sleep. Remembering some other sleeptalking incidents at home, I just replied “Yeah, it’s mine,” and he went silent afterwards, sleeping soundly like a baby while I wondered what he was dreaming about.

He didn’t remember anything like that the next day, claiming that he didn’t get any dreams and was just deep asleep the whole way through.

Fast forward to the next night, he still murmured some stuff, but I was too sleepy to remember what he said the next morning. I do remember though, him kind of half sitting up as if trying to see who’s outside the door, then laid back and continued sleeping. I thought he just couldn’t fall back asleep at that point, so I just pat his back for a bit.

He had no idea he did that either, saying that he was deep in sleep the whole night.

Well, it’s not just discovering that he sleeptalks.

Apparently, I snore too. It was one of those moments when he cuddled me to sleep halfway through the night, and I suppose I must have been feeling so comfortable that I started snoring.

We learn new things about each other everyday I suppose, hahah

“Don’t even bother. I can read you like an open book,” Jon would always tell me every single time I tell him that I plan to surprise him or prank him. “I know you very well dear.”

That’s me; predictable, almost as if I was moving and acting in perpetual looping motions. Sometimes I think he knows me better than I know myself. We usually sleep early, around 10.30p.m. on most days unless it was a weekend and he was staying over for the night. That’s when we might head out for some supper or be out with his friends until around midnight.

On days he’s not with me, either one of us would suggest that we head to sleep, whoever that’s sleepier. Most of the time, the other person would simply follow suit.

I consider myself a clingy person. I want to be as close to him as I could possibly be, and be around him as often as I can. I like being in physical contact with him when we are together, even if I’m just placing my hand on his lap. I like to go to sleep when he does so that I get all the time I could with him. I’d wait up even if I could have gone to sleep earlier because I was simply idling around.

“It’s getting late,” I might tell him when it’s around 11pm and he hasn’t suggested we end the day yet. “Shall we go to sleep?”

“I’ll be working on this thing for a while more, you can go ahead and sleep first. You don’t have to wait up.” He’d reply sometimes when he’s having a busier day.

“Ah, alright.” Sometimes I would simply continue watching Grey’s Anatomy on my laptop while waiting, but some other time there really wasn’t anything that I wanted to do other than staring into space or mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. “I will just continue writing another blog post meanwhile then I guess.”

“Yeah right,” he would muse. “Say anything you want, you are just waiting up for me to go to bed. Don’t even think I don’t know that.”

Guilty.

Sometimes I really wanted to continue doing whatever I was doing and so I continue and head to sleep when he’s done with his stuff, but most of the time, indeed, I was guilty as charged.

I think that’s one of the best things about being together with someone. You start out as strangers, and you never stop learning about one another. Over time you know their habits, what they were going to think or say about a certain situation, and read you as if you’re an open book laid right before his eyes.

You learn to catch those body language signs when they are thinking about trying something, when they are just being playful or are deep in thoughts but pretending not to be. How they are having a bad day when they drag their feet just a little bit more when they walk; how they avert their eyes and talk a little awkward when they are shy but tentative about something new; how that slightly drawn out sentence indicates they have something more in their mind that they haven’t said out loud.

Sometimes you’d know when their ‘no’ means ‘no’ and there’s that, and other times when they’d say no and you know to stop asking because you know after a while they’d say “You know what, alright. Yes” simply from a higher pitch in their voice when they said no earlier.

These signs, these little secrets that are unique and known only to you, are part of the joys of being with someone even if you are only subconscious about it. You don’t know that you know it most of the time, until you sit down and reflect on what you know about them. You know when their friends are pushing their limits because those friends did not know those little signals that you do and you try to avert the conversations or calm your person down with a gentle touch down their back.

He reads me like an open book, that much is true. Meanwhile I’m just slowly flipping through his pages and noticing the tiny folds and creases around the page corners too.

Let’s read on.